Obsidian rumdl Plugin

Fast markdown linting for Obsidian using rumdl - a Rust-based markdown linter compiled to WebAssembly.

Features

• Real-time linting - See issues as you type with inline diagnostics
• One-click fixes - Fix issues directly from the hover tooltip
• Format on save - Automatically fix all issues when saving
• Status bar - See issue count at a glance, click to view details
• 50+ lint rules - Comprehensive markdown style checking
• Config file support - Use .rumdl.toml for project-wide settings, with extends to share a base config
• Rule documentation - Quick links to rule docs from settings and tooltips

Requires Obsidian 1.13.1 or newer; works on desktop and mobile.

Installation

Via BRAT (Recommended - while awaiting community plugin approval)

The easiest way to install and get automatic updates while the plugin is pending review on the Obsidian community site:

1. Install BRAT from the Community Plugins
2. Open Obsidian Settings → BRAT
3. Click Add Beta plugin
4. Enter: rvben/obsidian-rumdl
5. Enable the plugin in Settings → Community Plugins

BRAT will automatically update the plugin when new releases are published.

Manual Installation

1. Download the latest release from Releases
2. Extract to your vault's .obsidian/plugins/obsidian-rumdl/ folder
3. Enable the plugin in Settings → Community plugins

From Community Plugins

The plugin is listed at community.obsidian.md/plugins/rumdl and is pending review there. Obsidian replaced the GitHub pull-request submission queue with its community site in 2026, so the former obsidian-releases PR no longer exists. Until the review completes, the "Add to Obsidian" button is disabled; use BRAT in the meantime for easy installation and updates.

Usage

Once enabled, the plugin automatically lints markdown files as you edit them:

• Status bar shows the issue count (click to see details)
• Hover over underlined text to see the issue and available fixes
• Click "Fix" in the tooltip to apply the fix
• Click "Docs" to view the rule documentation

Settings

Setting	Description
Format on save	Automatically fix all issues when saving
Show status bar	Display issue count in the status bar
Use config file	Load settings from .rumdl.toml if present
Line length	Maximum line length (0 = unlimited)
Style preferences	Heading, emphasis, strong, and list styles
Rules	Enable/disable individual lint rules

Configuration File

Create a .rumdl.toml in your vault root for project-wide settings:

[global]
disable = ["MD041", "MD013"]
line-length = 120
# flavor = "standard"  # Uncomment to disable Obsidian-specific syntax support

[MD013]
line-length = 100

[MD007]
indent = 4

You can also export your current settings to a config file from the plugin settings.

Sharing a base config with extends

A config file can build on another one with extends, exactly as with the rumdl CLI: the base is loaded first and the extending file's settings are merged on top. The path is resolved relative to the file that declares it, and ~/, $VAR and absolute paths work too.

extends = "../shared/rumdl-base.toml"

[global]
extend-disable = ["MD041"]

Targets inside the vault load everywhere. Targets outside the vault (../, ~/, $VAR, absolute paths) can only be read by the desktop app, where the plugin reads them directly from disk with Node's file system API; this is the one place the plugin touches files outside the vault, and it only ever reads them. On mobile the plugin reports the config error and falls back to its own settings. The plugin settings show the whole chain of files in use.

Obsidian-Specific Syntax Support

This plugin automatically enables Obsidian flavor which recognizes Obsidian-specific markdown syntax:

Syntax	Example	How it's handled
Tags	#my-tag	Not flagged as missing heading space (MD018)
Callouts	> [!NOTE]	Recognized as valid blockquotes
Highlights	==highlighted==	Not flagged as spacing issue
Comments	%%comment%%	Content inside is skipped
Extended checkboxes	- [/], - [-], - [>]	Recognized as valid task items
Dataview fields	field:: value	Not flagged as consecutive spaces
Templater	<% code %>	Recognized as template syntax
Wikilinks	[[link]]	Properly handled
Block references	^block-id	Not flagged

If you need standard markdown linting without Obsidian flavor, add flavor = "standard" to your .rumdl.toml.

Default Settings for Obsidian

The plugin comes with sensible defaults for Obsidian:

• MD041 (first-line-heading) - Disabled by default (notes often have frontmatter)
• Line length - Set to unlimited (prose writing has long lines)
• Obsidian flavor - Enabled by default for Obsidian-specific syntax support

Supported Rules

rumdl supports 50+ lint rules. Open Rules in the plugin settings to search them, toggle them, and follow the Docs link of each rule to learn more.

Common rules include:

• MD001 - Heading levels should increment by one
• MD003 - Heading style consistency
• MD009 - No trailing spaces
• MD012 - No multiple consecutive blank lines
• MD022 - Headings should be surrounded by blank lines
• MD032 - Lists should be surrounded by blank lines

Development

# Install dependencies
npm install

# Development build with hot reload
npm run dev

# Production build
npm run build

# Build and copy into a local vault (<vault>/.obsidian/plugins/rumdl/), then reload Obsidian
OBSIDIAN_VAULT=~/path/to/vault npm run deploy

About rumdl

rumdl is a fast markdown linter written in Rust. This plugin uses the WebAssembly build for browser compatibility.

License

MIT